Today in France: Olympique Lyonnais doubles with French Cup victory

After last weeks 7th consecutive French championships victory, the Olympique Lyonnais has just doubled, winning the French Cup in a long and difficult match against a very determined Paris Saint Germain, 1-0, with a goal by Sidney Govou in overtime.

One more night of honking cars and partying in Lyon!

Félicitations à l’OL deux fois de la part de Wandering electrons!

Further reading:

In English
Lyon completes first double with Cup win at Reuters UK

In French
Lyon Savoure à double titre at l’Equipe.
La Coupe de France et le doublé pour l’OL, qui bat le PSG en finale (1-0) at Le Monde
Deux fois bravo ! at Le Progrès

Today in France: “obsessive Sarkosis”

A fun (and insightful) article was published in the New York Times today:

A Passion for (and Against) Sarkozy By Steven Erlanger.

According to the psychiatrist Serge Hefez, the French are suffering from his newly diagnosed mental disorder, “obsessive Sarkosis”, following the 2007 election of their break-the-mold President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy has always been a very colorful politician and provoked a “you either love him or hate him” reaction among the French. He is particularly known for being everywhere at once on the political scene, involving himself in all world and national political issues, sometimes at the expense of other politicians who are supposed to be in charge of those issues.

But it is particularly in the year after his election that he became known as the “Bling-bling” President, leading a lifestyle more like a Hollywood star than a traditionally dignified French national leader. Starting with vacations in glamourous locals on yachts and private jets of his millionaire friends, he would divorce his ex-fashion model second wife Cécilia (the rumors on the street are that it apparently was not his choice) and a few months later get remarried with another fashion model, Carla Bruni, who is also a singer-songwriter and Italian heiress (although she has lived in France from the age of 6).

And yes, the New York Times article is correct: the French are obsessed, looking upon their President with the same sort of fascination normally reserved for the latest Californian revelation, trying to figure out if they’ve elected a new-school leader full of promise or a train-wreck in the making.

Sarkozy has recently tuned down the “pipol” (‘people’ In phonetic French) lifestyle on the advice of his political entourage, who feel that it was in part responsible for a serious dive in his approval ratings at the approach of his first year in office. We’ll see what the future brings. If I could have voted, my ballot would have gone to Sarkozy, even though I consider myself more center-left than center-right. Despite his flamboyance I continue to think that he may be the man who can get France out of decades of economic gridlock. Time will tell if he’s a brilliant politician or not; in the meantime he’s at least a really good topic of conversation.

Today in France: Olympique Lyonnais wins 7th consecutive French soccer championships title

Lyon’s soccer team, the Olympique Lyonnais (OL) has just won their 7th consecutive French championship soccer title, beating The AJ of Auxerre 3 goals to 1, while the Girodins of Bordeaux secured the second place finish, playing to a draw, 2-2, against Lens. Marsielle was third, beating Strasbourg 4 to 3.

It was a long battle this year for Lyon, the championship playing out to this very last day. A tip of the hat to the Bordeaux team who managed to keep the pressure on Lyon for the entire season, something that no other team has done for several years now.

But especially a huge “ALLEZ OL!!!” from Wandering electrons!

Woohoo! C’est la fête à Lyon !

Further reading:

In English:
Lyon celebrate toughest title at Reuters UK
Lyon wins seventh straight French football title from Agence France-Presse / Google
Lyon beats Auxerre 3-1 to clinch 7th consecutive French title from the Canadian Press / Google

In French:
Lyon plane, Lens coule at L’Equipe.
Un champion moins souverain at L’Equipe. This is a photo essay that recounts this year’s much more difficult road to the championship.
OL: sept fois c’est fait ! at Le Progrès. The coverage in Lyon’s local newspaper.

Today in France: Commenting on the French

This past Sunday, March 23rd, The New York Times published an article by Elaine Sciolino entitled,

“A Guide to the French. Handle With Care.“

Go ahead and read the article, but be sure to come back here afterwards. I’ll leave a light on for you

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Done? Great.

Today in France: Henri Salvador dies at the age of 90

It’s a sad day here in France with the loss yesterday of Henri Salvador, crooner à la française.

M. Salvador has been a figure of the French musical and entertainment scene since the 40s, and up to the very end he kept his sharp spirit and good humor.

Radio France Internationale has a good biography of Salvador’s career as well as this adieu article, both in English.

I discovered Monsieur Henri with the release of “Chambre avec vue”, officially released in France in 2000. The album skyrocketed, becoming gold within weeks and earning Salvador the ‘Best Male Artist of the Year’ and the ‘Best Variety Album of the Year’ awards in the 2001 edition of the French Victoires de la Musique. I cannot more highly recommend this album, but try to find an original French edition.

The French magazine Le Point has put a few of Salvador’s songs online. Be sure to listen to “Jardin d’hiver”, which is the first title on “Chambre avec vue”, and will leave you breathless with it’s mesmerizing proof that simplicity is at the heart of beauty.

Adieu Henri. Merci pour la musique et ton rire inimitable.

Today in France: Alstrom unveils their 4th generation high-speed train

When living, or simply travelling in France it’s difficult to not be impressed by the “TGV”, short for Train à Grande Vitesse, (High Speed train). TGVs travel at commercial speeds of up to 320 kilometers an hour (about 200 miles an hour), which connects Lyon to Paris in only two hours. Eurostar is also a TGV line and connects Paris to London in as little as 2 hours and 15 minutes. Last year a TGV set a new world speed record for a wheeled train, cruising at a cool 574.8 km/h (357 mph)!

The TGV was originally developed by the SNCF, the French national rail company, and GEC-Alsthom, now Alstrom.

Alstrom unveiled yesterday their 4th generation high-speed train, called the AGV, for “Automotrice à Grande Vitesse”.

Classic TGVs have a locomotive at the front and back of the train. Alstrom reports that the new AGV technology distributes the drive system into each wagon. This will allow for even greater commercial speeds, as high as 360 kph (227 mph) and, more importantly perhaps from a business point of view, an increase in the number of passengers that can be onboard. According to Alstrom, the new train will also consume about 15% less energy than its competitors, making it even more attractive in today’s “greener” market.

For the first time, Alstrom developed this new technology using their own funds and the AGV will be an Alstom trademarked product (The TGV was a SNCF trademark). They are anticipating the need for replacement of the aging fleet of current TGVs but also the interest for high-speed trains in new markets around the world. Indeed, high-speed train lines have become real and viable alternatives to air or car travel. With the current global warning concerns, and with crude oil bouncing around the $100 mark, the TGV and the new AGV, both electrically powered technologies, are finally starting to turn heads everywhere, even in the United States. In fact, the new AGV has already found its first purchaser, the Italian private railway company Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (NTV). Anticipating the market in this way is of course not without risks, but I’m betting that this will pay off for them.

You can also read Le Monde’s article (in French) for a few more days.

Today in France: Making good things better(?)

In their year 2000 World Health Report (full Report (.pdf), or consult by chapters from here or read the Press release), the World Health Organization (WHO) found that France had the best overall healthcare system among its 191 Member States. In comparison, the United States, despite pouring more of its gross domestic product into healthcare than any of the other nations, managed only a 37th place in their results. Michael Moore hammered this home in his film “Sicko“, a scathing criticism on the failings of the American health insurance system. Mr. Moore of course pulls all the strings he needs to to make his point, including painting the French medical landscape as a sort of healthcare utopia. There is, of course, room for improvement even in the French system. With that said however, my personal worst nightmare would be to find myself again in the American system.

Today in France: Lyon inspires

I’m always very happy when the American press manages to get past the extremely erroneous but unfortunately very widespread thought that France = Paris+Azur coast+big ski resorts.

The New York Times published an article today in its Europe section entitled, “Smitten by Lyon, a Visitor Tries to Recreate the Magic” (free registration may be needed, or use bug me not). If you read my About page you will quickly sniff out the fact that I live in Lyon, so I was particularly happy to see this article.

To summarize, after a visit to Lyon, the entrepreneur Buti Saeed al-Ghandi was inspired to create an architectural project in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) that will seek to capture the mood, magic and richness of Lyon, while at the same time avoiding any Disneyland-like imitation of the Capitale des Gaules.

I thought I’d use my blog to create a sort of web-compliment for the article. What follows are a few of the key words of the article that may not be completely clear for the non-lyonnais…

Today in France: No smoking please

There is certainly no lack of images that come to mind when thinking of France: the Eiffel tower and the hussle and bussle of Paris, The belle damoiselle, a baguette in the handlebar basket, as she pedals home on a cobblestone street, the sun and sea of the Mediterranean coast, the jagged white peaks of the Alps. And then of course the cafés. Ah, yes, French cafés, the “living room of the French” as the popular analogy goes. One can’t help but see Jean-Paul Sartre in an animated discussion on existentialism with Simone de Beauvoir, as both of them sip their espressos, and, especially, smoke their cigarettes.

Though romanticized images, they are nonetheless true facets of French life; the Eiffel tower does really exist, Paris does move at a thousand kilometers per hour, you really do see people on bikes going home with their groceries, including the omnipresent baguette, in the basket, and French cafés are indeed the place par excellence to sit down and relax with friends, or maybe read the newspaper, while enjoying an espresso, and, very very often, a cigarette.

Or at least that was the case up to the beginning of this year.